“What's this? What's this?” gasped the secretary, waving his arms.
“Bricks, 'twad seem,” the other answered, staying his flight.
The secretary puffed up like a pudding in a hurry.
“Where's the Cup? Champion, Challenge, etc.,” he jerked out. “Mind, sir, you're responsible! wholly responsible! Dents, damages, delays! What's it all mean, sir? These—these monstrous creations “—he brandished the bricks, and M'Adam started back—“wrapped, as I live, in straw, sir, in the Cup case, sir! the Cup case! No Cup! Infamous! Disgraceful! Insult me—meeting—committee—every one! What's it mean, sir?” He paused to pant, his body filling and emptying like a bladder.
M'Adam approached him with one eye on the crowd, which was heaving forward again, threatening still, but sullen and silent.
“I pit 'em there,” he whispered; and drew back to watch the effect of his disclosure.
The secretary gasped.
“You—you not only do this—amazing thing—these monstrosities”—he hurled the bricks furiously on the unoffending ground—“but you dare to tell me so!”
The little man smiled.
“'Do wrang and conceal it, do right and confess it,' that's Englishmen's motto, and mine, as a rule; but this time I had ma reasons.”